Thursday, April 06, 2006

Blog book drawings:My Monday book giveaway (ALONG CAME LOVE) is here.You can still enter. Just post a comment on those blog posts.On Wednesday, April 12th, I'll draw the winner for ALONG CAME LOVE, and on Thursday, April 13th, I'll post the title of another book I'm giving away. Stay tuned.

Mt. Hermon: Well, my friend Meredith Efken is staying with me tonight and tomorrow, and then we’re heading to Mt. Hermon Christian Writers Conference. Hence, tomorrow is a shopping day. At the very least, I have to pick up Trader Joe’s dark chocolate for the conference. Survival food, you know.

I’m looking forward to seeing old friends and making new ones. Meredith and I were talking about this today, how there’s something about being the company of writers that just invigorating. I might even get writing done this weekend, who knows?

If you think of it, say a pray for me: That I would listen and obey God’s voice in my ear, absorb His peace, trust Him to have His hand over my time at the conference. Praise God from whom all blessings truly flow!

Bible in 90 Days:Day 78. I haven’t read today yet, but I will right now. I’m in 1st Corinthians. I’m realizing the power and influence of God’s Spirit on His church. We tend to un-supernaturalize the Holy Spirit, I think, but the early church relied on His presence in each of us. I need to trust His voice speaking to me more.

I can imagine that being with writers can be very invigorating. I'm sure that that will help you in many ways. I'd definitely say that brainstorming is an important part of writing. It's great when you can talk to someone about your ideas and get feedback about what works and what might not from someone who's in the same business.

I always felt the Holy Spirit in any Christian conference I went to and I'm sure this will be an aspect of the ACFW conference too. I'll pray for you as well all the other writers, that His work will be done through what He gives you to write.

I can remember the days when reading, and writing, fiction was a no-no for Christians. It was all supposed to be the Bible only and any serious book on how to live the Christian life. I'm so glad that those legalistic ideas aren't taken that seriously anymore. After all, God did give us imagination and why not use it to His glory. Sometimes what I've read in fiction has really hit home and got me thinking about things I do or don't do.

I also think that Christian fiction can be a great outreach tool. But we have to pray for the people that *read* the books, too, so that the ground can be prepared to receive the seed. My mother was often very annoyed when at church there was prayer for the missionaries but never any for the people they were ministering to. Does not the Holy Spirit prepare the ground for the seed?

I experienced it recently with the other Christian writer I mentioned to you. When her book went to the publisher, she wrote a e-mail to her newsletter group asking us to pray that the book would be used for God's glory. Since the book was released, she has received letters that she has shared with us from people who were particularly blessed or convicted by what she had written. It's gone into it's 3rd printing. That has really stuck with me and it makes sense that we should pray for this.

May God bless all of you at this conference and through you and the outreach you'll have, bless others too.

You won't believe how much trouble I had posting my comment. This is the first time that has ever happened to me. I don't know what's at fault but it kept being rejected even after I redid the verification a total of 5 times. Finally, was completely gone and said "Can't find server". Luckily, I had saved at least a part of the comment because I had turn off the pictures which--ahem--also turns of the "word verification". So I had to go through the process of saving the comment, turning on my "show pictures" and redoing the comment before I actually ran into the word verification problem. I wonder who was trying to get me from posting my comment? I know it's pretty long but I felt it was somehow important. Who knows?

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